Roy Harper’s birthday celebrations

Dawn Renton

Music maverick and radical folk icon Roy Harper has announced live dates to celebrate his 75th this September.

The tour, which arrives in Edinburgh will feature string and brass ensemble arranged by Fiona Brice.

Now a recording artist for over 50 years, Roy has seen many shifts in the modus, style and politics of society, things he has always drawn from in his songwriting.

To tie in with these significant anniversaries he will begin reissuing much of his catalogue on vinyl from September 2. The first three titles to be released are ‘Flat Baroque and Berserk’, ‘Stormcock’, and ‘Lifemask’.

Roy said: “This year, I celebrate my 75th birthday. In my 30s, my lifestyle was such that I could never have imagined that I’d live as long as this, but here I am.

“Perhaps because I thought that my life might be shorter than this, I’ve tended latterly to want to celebrate significant milestones, so here we are. I’m really looking forward to being out there again.

“It’ll be really great to see old friends and new, and be in that heady mix of the song and the moment on a stage again.”

Roy is one of the few surviving singer-songwriters from the counterculture of the 60s who is still creatively engaged in new composition and in progressing a body of work that has come to stand for a particularly single minded form of integrity.

Now officially ‘retired’, and living in a secluded corner of Ireland, Harper has recently been hailed as a key influence by a much younger generation of devoted starsailors who instinctively recognise his innovations, his refusal to compromise and his visionary world view.

In previous decades he has enjoyed public endorsements from the likes of Led Zeppelin, Kate Bush, Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour and many more.